Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 50
December 29, 2015
Review: Santa Took Them by William Malmborg
About Santa Took Them
Christmas Eve 2005. Eight year old Michelle Harper is the only survivor in a horrific massacre that has left her four siblings decapitated, and her mother slowly dying as her innards ooze out onto the second floor landing, the words SANTA TOOK THEM written in blood on the bedroom wall.
Ten years later, having been released from a psychiatric hospital for children, Michelle disappears, her uncle and his girlfriend found hacked to death with a knife before being decapitated, the words SANTA TOOK THEM once again written in blood on the wall.
Dr. Samantha Loomis had no plans for the holidays, and was hoping to spend the time simply relaxing in her home. That all changes when the police begin asking her questions about Michelle, questions that make it fairly clear that they believe her to be guilty of the recent slayings.
No one in Holly Brook, IL has forgotten the horror that unfolded on Christmas Eve all those years ago, and now, as a terrifying blizzard descends upon the small isolated town, and teens begin disappearing one by one, it looks as if that gruesome night was only the beginning.
About the Author
William Malmborg is the author of five novels, Jimmy, Text Message, Nikki’s Secret, Dark Harvest and Blind Eye, as well as the short story collection Scraping the Bone: Ten Dark Tales. Future works will include Santa Took Them and A Taste of Pain, as well as an episode in the Linger series published by Braun Haus Media under the pseudonym Edward Fallon. When not writing, William spends time reading, doing puzzles, planting peach trees and looking for ghosts in the 115-year-old farmhouse in Elgin, IL where he lives with his brother Tom and their two cats Toby and Truman.
My Thoughts
I think it’s safe to say I have a new favorite holiday horror book. Santa Took Them is everything a guy like me could ask for in a Christmassacre – there’s disemboweling aplenty, randy teenagers running amok, dark secrets, and gift boxes filled with severed heads courtesy of a crazy axe-wielding psycho dressed up like St. Nick. Ho ho ho!
Ten years ago, Michelle Harper showed up in her neighbor’s house carrying the head of her sibling. Now, at 18, she’s just been released from the children’s psychiatric hospital into the care of her uncle. No sooner can you say “Merry Christmas!” before a series of attacks, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Harper family murders, start up again and the cozy, snow-covered town of Holly Brook finds itself gripped in horror once more.
Harper’s doctor, Samantha Loomis, arrives to help clear the girl’s name, not believing Michelle is responsible for the atrocities that have struck Holly Brook, neither ten years ago, nor now. All fingers, though, are pointed squarely in the missing Michelle’s direction and bodies are dropping like an overweight elf through a chimney.
Where author William Malmborg really shines, though, is in keeping the suspense high. There’s blood aplenty, but also a creeping dread that shines through beautifully. You know that most of the characters are going to be fodder for the grisly mill, but it’s in their executions that Malmborg provides the most squirms, refusing to shy away from the gore and ultraviolence. There’s also a few secrets several of the townsfolk are keeping, and they provide some great, well-timed shocks along the way.
Right from the get-go, it’s clear that Malmborg has a deep love and affinity for the old school slasher flicks, and Santa Took Them is clearly a spiritual successor to John Carpenter’s film, Halloween, right down to this next-generation Dr. Loomis. This is far from a cheap knock-off, though, and Carpenter’s work provides merely a template for this homage. Santa Took Them is clearly it’s own beast, and a darn good one at that.
Santa Took Them is an excellent Christmas-time horror read, but also a love-letter to the slasher horror film genre with a brilliant serial killer riding front and center. While dark and gruesome, Malmborg crafts a book that is compulsively readable and wickedly entertaining. Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, you’ll surely want to give this a read. Buy it!
Buy Santa Took Them At Amazon
December 27, 2015
A review of The Cyborg Chronicles
Many thanks to fellow author Tommy Muncie for his in-depth thoughts on The Cyborg Chronicles (releasing Monday, Dec. 28!). Lots of love went into these works and I am beyond thrilled to be a part of this anthology.
Buy this book on Amazon or borrow on Kindle Unlimited
(I received an advance reader copy of this anthology from contributor Michael Patrick Hicks, in exchange for an honest review)
The stories in this anthology are impressive in ideas and style. When M.P Hicks sent me an ARC of this I didn’t expect to be getting a review up as soon as this, but these stories got me there because I couldn’t stop reading them. There were a couple that didn’t satisfy me as much as the others, but even then I found things to admire.
What I really liked about Cyborg Chronicles was how it was rather like the reading equivalent of a music album where the order of tracks was carefully selected so the whole thing flowed and changed pace at the right times. Some of these stories are teasers for other work by the author, set in…
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December 23, 2015
Review: Dawn of the Dead by George Romero and Susanna Sparrow [Audiobook]
About Dawn of the Dead
WHEN THERE IS NO MORE ROOM IN HELL, THE DEAD WILL WALK THE EARTH
George A. Romero terrified a generation with his iconic horror film and with this cult-classic novel. Immerse yourself in this unparalleled vision from the revered master of the zombie apocalypse…and be terrified all over again.
Zombies have overpowered the living and ravaged the world. Society has collapsed as humans race to save themselves. No one knows how far the creatures have spread, or how to stop them. In downtown Philadelphia, four people escape the chaos and find shelter in a vacated shopping mall. But as their greed spirals and the undead close in, their haven for waiting out the end of the world becomes the last battleground for survival. And there is nowhere left to hide…
“Dawn of the Dead is one of the best horror movies ever made.” —Roger Ebert
About the Author
George A. Romero is a legendary American filmmaker and screenwriter whose fifteen directorial credits include the horror classics Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985). The New York Times named Dawn of the Dead as one of “The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.”
My Thoughts
[My original Dawn of the Dead audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.]
George A. Romero is the grandfather of the zombie genre, and perhaps the most influential filmmaker of all-thing zombies. His influence has shone down upon pop culture in the nearly-forty years that followed the release of his movie, Dawn of the Dead. You can see it all around you right now with The Walking Dead in comics and on TV, Jonathan Maberry’s terrific Rot & Ruin series, Brian Keene’s The Rising, and Stephen King’s Cell. I doubt that without Romero any of these latter stories would measure up quite as well. They are each a product of a very prolific history that traces back to the Romero movies.
So, it’s more than a bit of a shame that I found the novelization of Dawn of the Dead to be so tepid. While Romero is a fine filmmaker, his work as a novelist, along with co-writer Susanna Sparrow, leaves quite a lot to be desired. Originally published in 1978, the narrative holds up rather well and there are only a few anachronistic elements to remind you how many decades have passed since it was written. We get a brief nod to President Carter and, later, a “huge” twenty-one inch TV set that our survivors have to “lug” up the stairs. My primary issue boils down to the writing itself, though. Stylistically, it’s a mess. Character viewpoints shift on a whim, as if to capture the frenetic nature of a zombie apocalypse – however, the prose is fairly languid and wordy, which slows things down tremendously. And this being a zombie novel, we get plenty of references to the undead but with nary a change in descriptors, and I lost count of how many times the authors referred to them simply as ‘ghouls.’ It’s a lot, though. A lot.
With a seven-hour run time, this audiobook recording feels overly longer and much too ponderous. For a story about the fall of humanity and a quartet of survivors seeking shelter in a shopping mall overrun with zombies, it really should be a lot more energetic and punchy. There are only a few really good confrontations between the living and the walking dead, but too often I felt like the human characters existed in this novel mostly to just talk about the zombies. And we get a lot of talk about zombies. We get way more talk about zombies than we get actual zombies. By the time the finale rolls around and the survivors are confronted with a band of bikers/scavengers, the sudden conflict finally gives the book a bit of life, only far too late.
Production-wise, the quality is terrific and the recording comes through crisp and clear. This is an Audible Studios production, and, frankly, I expect it to be good. Jonathan Davis’s narration is solid, and he delivers a great reading of the material. Characters were presented well and with enough differentiation to keep track of dialogue. I don’t really have any qualms about Davis’s work here, and he does a serviceable job with the material he’s been given.
I’m hesitant to recommend this title for anyone other than die-hard fans and Romero completists. While the film version of Dawn of the Dead is perfect bit of zombie cinema, the novelization is a lackluster affair that oftentimes descends into pure boredom. As far as zombie books go, though, there are many other better offerings out there. Otherwise, stick with the film version on this one.
[Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com.]
Buy Dawn of the Dead At Amazon
Review: Krampus: The Yule Lord by Brom
About Krampus: The Yule Lord
Santa Claus, my dear old friend, you are a thief, a traitor, a slanderer, a murder, a liar, but worst of all you are a mockery of everything for which I stood.
You have sung your last ho, ho, ho, for I am coming to take your head. I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide…
The author and artist of The Child Thief returns with a modern fabulist tale of Krampus, the Lord of Yule and mortal enemy of Santa Claus.
One Christmas Eve in a small hollow in Boone County, West Virginia, struggling songwriter Jesse Walker witnesses a strange spectacle: seven devilish figures chasing a man in a red suit toward a sleigh and eight reindeer. When the reindeer leap skyward taking the sleigh, devil men, and Santa into the clouds, screams follow. Moments later, a large sack plummets earthward, a magical sack that will thrust the down-on-his luck singer into the clutches of the terrifying Yule Lord, Krampus. But the lines between good and evil become blurred as Jesse’s new master reveals many dark secrets about the cherry-cheeked Santa Claus, and how half a millennium ago, the jolly old saint imprisoned Krampus and usurped his magic.
Now Santa’s time is running short, for the Yule Lord is determined to have his retribution and reclaim Yuletide. If Jesse can survive this ancient feud, he might have the chance to redeem himself to his family, to save his own broken dreams…and help bring the magic of Yule to the impoverished folk of Boone County.
About the Author
Over the past decades, Brom has lent his distinctive visions and artwork to all facets of the creative industries, from novels and games, to comics and film. He is also the author of a series of award-winning illustrated horror novels: Krampus the Yule Lord, The Child Thief, The Plucker, and The Devil’s Rose. Brom is currently kept in a dank cellar somewhere just outside of Seattle. Visit him at http://www.bromart.com.
My Thoughts
Holiday horror is quickly becoming a favorite genre subset of mine. While Halloween is a perfectly natural fit for frightening reads, there’s something beautiful about the dichotomy of Christmas and creepiness and the imagery of blood-stained snow and monsters wreaking havoc to interrupt familial merriment, providing a necessary bit of antagonism to the wide-eyed wonder inherit in bringing joy to all mankind.
Or maybe I’ve just got a few screws loose….
Anyway, I enjoyed Krampus quite a bit, although I would have preferred something a little bit darker and meaner (but that’s just how I roll). While there is plenty of violence and crazy shenanigans at play in Brom’s work, there’s an awful lot of jovial spiritedness to it, as well, and the bottom line is this book is a heck of a lot of fun. Sure, there’s domestic abuse, a marriage in shambles, corrupt police and even more corrupt drug dealers, torture and murder. But there’s also a wicked streak of black humor running through it all and a sense of magical fun that prevents the work from being darkly bleak. In one scene, Krampus tells the story of his history to a dying man who has just been viciously tortured with a nail gun, but Brom manages to infuse this with a sense of humor. The man is concerned about his final moments, naturally, but Krampus is so self-centered that he simply cannot shut up and gets lost in his own words. It’s actually kind of funny and the scene plays out delightfully, even if it is a bit morbid.
I’m a fan of the mythological Krampus, and here Brom really brings this creature to life. If you’re not familiar with Krampus, I suggest you Google him immediately. Brom’s Krampus is just a flat-out cool dude, a highly charismatic story-teller, and this book is about his efforts to restore the meaning of the Yuletide season, which has been corrupted by the nefarious Santa Claus. You want a War on Christmas? Well, buddy, you got it right here. Krampus has sworn vengeance upon old Saint Nick, and Brom weaves in a brilliant and very sensible back-story between their antagonism that relies heavily on Norse mythology and the pagan roots of Solstice. Krampus himself is a beautifully tragic character – he’s been cheated, imprisoned for hundreds of years, seen the world stolen out from beneath him, and is now faced with a mankind that doesn’t give two crapolas about the Earth. How can he possibly save them? And given the sorry state of humanity in the early 21st Century, should he even bother trying?
Krampus is a strangely uplifting seasonal read, perfect fodder to get you in the mood for the holidays – and there’s even some great bits of art created by Brom smattered throughout. Dashes of horror, strong doses of fantasy and myth and magic, enough bloodletting to satisfy, and plenty of heart make this a great experience. Let the Yuletide reign!
Buy Krampus: The Yule Lord At Amazon
December 21, 2015
Newsletter Exclusive Incoming! Get Your Free Copy of Debts of Blood &Flesh!
The holidays are coming up fast (or already here, depending on which ones you observe), and I thought I would share something a little special.
It’s hard to believe I’ve been at this author gig for nearly two full years now. In that time, I’ve had the honor of being invited to submit stories to several anthologies. In 2015 alone, I was a part of three anthologies (No Way Home, Crime & Punishment, and The Cyborg Chronicles, due out on 12/28!), and, very nearly, a fourth.
Unfortunately, due to the dissolution of the publishing house that was planning on releasing Undaunted, this anthology never materialized. There were a number of terrific authors involved, with stories uniting around the theme of fantasy noir.
The cancellation of Undaunted left me with a finished story called Debts of Blood & Flesh, but one that has sadly since been orphaned. So here’s the deal: I’m making this an exclusive to my newsletter subscribers (you can sign up right here).
I don’t know when or if this will ever get a solo release; I may self-publish it one day for a wider release. For now, this is going to be a freebie to subscribers of my spam-free newsletter. These mailings only go out about once a month, at the most, and are often contingent on what, if any, releases I have coming out. I promise you will not be bombarded.
So if you’re interested in getting your exclusive, free copy of my fantasy noir short story, Debts of Blood & Flesh, sign up for the newsletter. Later this week, you’ll get this story, no strings attached. And if you don’t want to stick around afterward, no worries, you can unsubscribe at any time.
About Debts of Blood & Flesh
The search for a missing woman ignites a decades-old plot of revenge. Blood soon stains the streets of Dyysahaek, and a lone, scarred Judge is the only man standing between encroaching madness and an ancient enemy that was thought defeated.
2015 Top 10 Books
2015 is nearing its end, which obviously means it time for Best Of lists to start making their merry rounds.
Here’s my 10 favorite reads for this year – note that at least one was not published in 2015, but since I read it in 2015 and since this is my list, I’m deciding it is perfectly OK to include it.
Note, too, that some are audiobooks. There’s a bit of a debate, apparently, over whether or not audiobooks count as “read” material. I began listening to audiobooks for the first time this year, and two of my favorites were discovered on that format. Again, the whole “it’s my list and I’ll do what I want” rule applies.
I’m offering this list without commentary or justification. These are the book that I enjoyed the most; your mileage may vary. I’ve linked to the reviews I’ve posted for these titles, either here or at Amazon, so feel to give them a read for my thoughts.
All right – on with the list!
Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (Audiobook)
A Song of Shadows (Charlie Parker #13) by John Connolly
Flex (Mancer #1) by Ferret Steinmetz
First Light (The Red #1) by Linda Nagata
Snowblind by Michael McBride [published in 2012, but I didn’t read it until this year.]
The Z Chronicles (anthology)
Atlanta Burns by Chuck Wendig
Gemini Cell by Myke Cole
Within by Keith Deininger
Masters of Blood and Bone by Craig Saunders
December 17, 2015
Review: Strictly Analog by Richard Levesque [Audiobook]
About Strictly Analog
Fans of William Gibson, Jonathan Letham, and Richard K. Morgan will enjoy Strictly Analog by Richard Levesque.
What’s a private detective to do in a future where nothing is private any more?
For Ted Lomax, the answer is to find clients who need their info kept off the grid, and that’s what Ted has done for years, skirting the high tech that runs the new California and living on the fringes of society. But when his daughter is accused of murdering her boyfriend–an agent in the Secret Police–Ted has to dig himself out of the hole he’s been in for years in order to save her.
Before long, he’s pulled into a shadow world of underground hackers, high-end programmers, and renegade gear-heads, all of whom seem to have a stake in California’s future. The further he digs into the case, the clearer it becomes that it’s about more than one dead agent. Solving it might save his daughter. And it might get him killed. And it just might open the door to secrets that reach back to the attack that almost killed him eighteen years before. At any rate, Ted Lomax will never be the same.
About the Author
Richard Levesque has spent most of his life in Southern California. For the last several years he has taught composition and literature, including science fiction, as part of the English Department at Fullerton College. He published his first novel, Take Back Tomorrow, in 2012 and followed it with Strictly Analog and the Ace Stubble series. When not writing or grading papers, he works on his collection of old science fiction pulps and spends time with his wife and daughter.
My Thoughts
[Note: This review was originally published at Audiobook Reviewer.]
Richard Levesque presents a compelling science fiction detective thriller in Strictly Analog, which finds P.I. Ted Lomax on the hunt for answers after his daughter is accused of murdering her boyfriend, an agent for California’s secret police. Injured in the war for California’s independence, Lomax is unable to use the Google Glass-like eye-wear that has proliferated across LA and keeps people connected to the net. As such, he specializes in the rare breed of off-grid detective work, advertising himself as ‘strictly analog.’
Levesque presents a corporate-run California where the gap between social classes has increased even further and the rich trip on a drug that mimics synesthesia, and where everyone is constantly connected. Lomax’s investigation takes him far off his usual beaten path of working cheating spouse cases and into the underbelly of a high-tech conspiracy and the burgeoning technology of transhumanism. The technology on display gives this technothriller a near-future feel and you can easily see the stepping stones to Levesque’s cyberpunk noir world in the here and now, and in the wake of Citizens United a corporate run government seems more than a probable eventuality. The story is kept grounded and rightly focused on the people, with the skewed relations connecting Lomax, his daughter, the dead boyfriend, and Miles, the head of the secret police and one-time war ally with Lomax, is a twisted little construct. The ancillary characters, too, help to reinforce the high tech-driven world, playing off today’s own eBay resellers and augmented big data hackers, while also acting as terrific foils for Lomax and his research.
The story is told through Lomax’s first-person perspective, and the narration by Steven Jay Cohen is suitably world-weary. Lomax is a tired, cynical man and Cohen’s slow and steady performance is a solid match to Levesque’s words. I was initially turned off by Cohen’s somewhat flat, monotone delivery, but adjusted to it well enough and actually found it be surprisingly well suited to the story. Although the narration is on the flat side, it’s actually never boring thanks to the crisp prose and the turns the story takes, and the interest-factor of the technology at play. Cohen perks up occasionally when delivering dialogue, and I caught myself grinning a bit at the energy he brings to the character of Sonny, an on-the-run hardware developer. The production quality is crisp and clean, making Strictly Analog a smooth and easy listen.
Those looking for a fresh mystery story with a dash of science fiction would do well to check this one out, and Lomax has all the makings of a mid-21st Century Columbo. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Levesque brings him back sometime soon for a new case to solve.
December 16, 2015
Review: Unstoppable by Bill Nye [Audiobook]
About Unstoppable
Just as World War II called an earlier generation to greatness, so the climate crisis is calling today’s rising youth to action: to create a better future.
In UNSTOPPABLE, Bill Nye crystallizes and expands the message for which he is best known and beloved. That message is that with a combination of optimism and scientific curiosity, all obstacles become opportunities, and the possibilities of our world become limitless. With a scientist’s thirst for knowledge and an engineer’s vision of what can be, Bill Nye sees today’s environmental issues not as insurmountable, depressing problems but as chances for our society to rise to the challenge and create a cleaner, healthier, smarter world. We need not accept that transportation consumes half our energy, and that two-thirds of the energy you put into your car is immediately thrown away out the tailpipe. We need not accept that dangerous emissions are the price we must pay for a vibrant economy and a comfortable life. Above all, we need not accept that we will leave our children a planet that is dirty, overheated, and depleted of resources. As Bill shares his vision, he debunks some of the most persistent myths and misunderstandings about global warming. When you are done reading, you’ll be enlightened and empowered. Chances are, you’ll be smiling, too, ready to join Bill and change the world.
In Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World, the New York Times bestselling author of Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation and former host of “Bill Nye the Science Guy” issues a new challenge to today’s generation: to make a cleaner, more efficient, and happier world.
About the Author
Bill Nye is a scientist, engineer, comedian, and inventor, as well as the New York Times bestselling author of Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, where he studied under Carl Sagan, and worked as an engineer at Boeing on the 747, before creating and hosting his much-loved Emmy award-winning PBS/Discovery Channel show “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” He holds six Honorary Doctorate degrees from Lehigh University, Willamette University, Quinnipiac University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Goucher College, and Johns Hopkins, and visits Cornell regularly as a Professor in his own right.
Corey S. Powell is the former editor in chief of American Scientist and Discover, where he is currently editor at large and continues to write the “Out There” column and blog. He is also a visiting scholar at NYU’s SHERP science journalism program, as well as a freelance writer for Popular Science, Smithsonian, Nautilus, and Aeon; his article “The Madness of the Planets” appears in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two daughters, and a small collection of Permian-era fossils.
My Thoughts
[Note: This review was previously published at Audiobook Reviewer.]
Dealing with climate change requires a fundamental change in the way we think about and view our place on this planet – according to Bill Nye, we have to view our role as owners of this earth, rather than mere renters. The earth needs our constant attention and we have to be careful about what we put into the air, water, and land since we all share these resources.
In Unstoppable, Nye rejects the altruistic notion that we have to “save the earth” – the Earth isn’t going anywhere. It was here long before us humans, and will be here long after us. Also rejected is the notion that climate change has always occurred, will always occur, and that we shouldn’t worry about it. The truth, as is often the case between two such extremes, lies somewhere in the middle. The Earth doesn’t need saving. Rather, we need to keep the earth habitable for us! If we’re not good stewards, or responsible owners, then we run the risk of making our planet inhospitable and hostile to our continued survival.
The goal, then, is to try and mitigate the effects of the global disaster that we have already created. With the amounts of carbon emissions that we are pumping into the atmosphere every second of every day, and the long-term trends that demonstrate the warmth and expansion of Earth’s waters, leading to changes in air and water currents, we’ve already created what amounts to an irreversible situation, or one that, if reversed, would take many, many hundreds of years. Hence the book’s title, Unstoppable. Rapid climate change is occurring, and the havoc that it will wreak on our entire ecosystem is a force to be reckoned with.
Over the course of the book, Nye discusses the science behind climate change and lays down some grisly facts surrounding the accumulation and perpetual proliferation of carbon dioxide into the air we breathe, defeats one by one the most common assertions claimed by climate change deniers, and explores the causes and effects of this man-made disruption (tornadoes in Chicago! More snowfall! More flooding! The collapse of infrastructure and the displacement of millions of people living in coastal regions!). He also notes, not unreasonably, that freeing ourselves from fossil fuels would go a long way toward cutting off a primary source of income to terrorist groups, like ISIS, that control the oil fields whose productions we are so dependent on. Also supremely beneficial to both the United States and the world at large is cutting loose climate change deniers from their political offices.
While there’s plenty of doom and gloom in the future forecast, it’s not completely without some measure of hope. Nye also discusses the technologies that we can and should be adopting in order to ensure our continued existence. Nye offers plenty of practical (thought not necessarily cheap) efforts that could be undertaken, literally, right at home, like installing solar panels, collecting rain water, and making slight alterations to the way you insulate your home, and buying an electric vehicle. Each of these small, environmentally conscious steps can help off-set the decades of damage we have done, and continue to do, to the world around us. If we want to continue living on the Earth, though, we will have to make some tough choices in the way we live.
As a long-time science communicator, Bill Nye is able to lay down the surprisingly large breadth of information surrounding the topic of climate change. And as narrator of his own book, he’s able to present the material with his trademark wit and passion, making the book a real joy to listen to. The Science Guy brings with him all of the entertainment value that made his television series such a joy to watch back in the 1990s, and the production value on this audio book is superior, running along with nary a hiccup. Throughout the narration, he provides plenty of real world illustrations to support the scientific data, which helps hammer home the importance of dealing with this dangerous reality and reminds us that we can no longer keep our heads buried in the sand.
We cannot ignore this problem until it goes away because, as Nye makes abundantly clear, this problem is simply not going to go away, no matter how loud the (uninformed) denial. Information is relayed in an easy-to-understand and cogent fashion, which is a very wise approach since this is a topic that literally everyone should be made to understand. You don’t need a PhD to get clued in on the science at hand, and this book serves as a refreshing primer that will make it very easy for people to become informed. In fact, the information is so easy to grasp that even Ken Ham should be able to understand it, providing he’s willing to, once again, get schooled by Bill Nye the Science Guy!
December 7, 2015
Crime & Punishment – Now Available!
Buy now at Amazon
Special 99c Launch Price!
There will always be crime. There will always be those who covet what others possess, or who are driven to acts of violence through rage or cynical design. And there will always be those who seek justice for those crimes. Yet justice is in the eye of the beholder, and rarely does it come easy.
A bounty hunter, whose own freedom depends on him finding those who must have theirs taken away, never asks why. Or what will happen to them. But when he is sent back to his home planet to hunt a child and her family, he must confront the horror of his past and question whether he can ever truly be free.
A woman holds a gun to a man’s head, getting ready to pull the trigger. But her story doesn’t start there. It starts way back when she was a kid, in outback Australia. It starts when the government began to put bombs in people’s heads. When they started toying with probability-based punishment. Now, when she pulls that trigger, she doesn’t know if he’ll live or die. Or live and die.
A young woman who has lost everything but her soul fights to reclaim her life from a violent, sadistic criminal. But when she’s given a chance for freedom, she realises escape is not enough. First, a just punishment must be exacted for crimes committed.
In the near future, where the internet has evolved into the Mind, and become so complex that content is served preprocessed and digested by personal assistant AIs, independent thought is a thing of the past, a crime even. When insurgents appear, persuading people to see the truth, a police captain begins to question where her allegiance truly lies.
Eight stories that push the boundaries of what the future holds by some of the most exciting new speculative fiction authors writing today.
Crime & Punishment (A Speculative Fiction Anthology) is now available for purchase at Amazon and, for a limited time, costs only 99c!
Add it to your Goodreads profile, too.
December 4, 2015
Review: The Acolyte by Nick Cutter [Audiobook]
About The Acolyte
Jonah Murtag is an Acolyte on the New Bethlehem police force. His job: eradicate all heretical religious faiths, their practitioners, and artefacts. Murtag’s got problems—one of his partners is a zealot, and he’s in love with the other one. Trouble at work, trouble at home. Murtag realizes that you can rob a citizenry of almost anything, but you can’t take away its faith. When a string of bombings paralyzes the city, religious fanatics are initially suspected, but startling clues point to a far more ominous perpetrator. If Murtag doesn’t get things sorted out, the Divine Council will dispatch The Quints, aka: Heaven’s Own Bagmen. The clock is ticking towards doomsday for the Chosen of New Bethlehem. And Jonah Murtag’s got another problem. The biggest and most worrisome . . . Jonah isn’t a believer anymore.
About the Author
Nick Cutter is a pseudonym for Craig Davidson, the acclaimed author of the short story collection Rust and Bone and the novels Cataract City, Sarah Court, and The Fighter. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
Jonathan Yen was inspired by the Golden Age of Radio, and while the gold was gone by the time he got there, he’s carried that inspiration through to commercial work, voice acting, and stage productions. From vintage Howard Fast science fiction to naturalist Paul Rosolie’s true adventures in the Amazon, Jonathan loves to tell a good story.
My Thoughts
My original The Acolyte audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.
I always like a good book that gives the religious-right a much-deserved solid kick in the tuchus. When I heard of Nick Cutter’s The Acolyte, shortly after reading his previous horror novel The Deep, I was more than slightly curious to see his take on American Christian extremism run amok. That said, this book isn’t for the squeamish, the easily-offended, or those who are afraid of having their beliefs challenged. Cutter takes a no holds barred approach, confronting right-wing extremism head on in such a fashion that the hand-wringing crowd would likely deem “offensive.”
The story opens with Acolyte Jonah Murtag recalling a scene he witnessed as a child, during The Purges, in which a mentally handicapped Muslim boy is beaten, tied to his bicycle, and then set on fire. It’s a powerful opening, and sets the tone for what follows. The Acolyte is a dark work of dystopian fiction, and also one that is bleakly satirical. Looking at the current slate of GOP nominees, most of whom have publicly admitted to hearing voices in their heads and Kasich’s recent proposal to develop an arm of the government devoted to spreading religious propaganda, the Starbucks red cup scares, and a particular Kentucky Court Clerk, this story is way too plausible, which makes it scarily effective.
Cutter takes America’s present-day culture wars against far-right religiosity to a bold new level with a story that quite clearly illustrates that faith is not a virtue. Separation of Church and State is no more – in fact, The Church is the state, and the US operates under the biblical mandates set forth in the New Republican Testament. As an officer of the Faith Crimes unit, Murtag’s duties are to ensure the purity of belief among the citizens of New Bethlehem, rooting out the cultist scourges of Scientologists, Mormons, and homosexuals so they can be sent to conversion camps, where their skulls are cut open and the sin is burnt out of their brains (presuming these “criminals” survive the police raids long enough to make it so far as being arrested).
After being assigned to protect The Prophet’s daughter, Eve, and failing when a suicide bombers strikes the nightclub she parties at, Murtag finds himself wounded and accused of terrorism simply for surviving. After enduring a brutal interrogation, and plenty of string pulling for those On High, he is allowed to be reinstated as an Acolyte and charged with finding the perpetrators behind the increasing spate of terror attacks. What follows is a twisty, noir-tinged narrative that follows in the mold of classic detective fiction with plenty of violence, femme fatales, con artists, and criminal conspiracy.
The world Murtag inhabits is very well realized, with Cutter drawing on Biblical elements that most believers gloss over or outright ignore, crafting New Bethlehem has a horrendously regressive, pre-Englightment dungeon of sorts. When Murtag goes to confession after murdering a Scientologist, he has to pick a properly-sized animal to sacrifice in a spiritual blood cleansing ritual. The female Acolyte, Doe, Murtag tells us, has hit the limits of her profession thanks to the glass ceiling put in place by Leviticus, which demands she earn less shekels than the men around her because she has the wrong set of genitals. Abortions, of course, are illegal and men have the option of ensuring the viability of their woman’s pregnancy with strong-armed toughs. One bombing victim is left to the care of a hospital where nurses are praying for him around the clock and even have their best practitioner sitting at his bedside. Actual medicine, along with forensic science, has long since been outlawed, you see. Eve’s corpse, meanwhile, becomes a Vaudevillian stage-show prop in The Prophet’s ministrations, an act that would no doubt make him the envy of many real-life prosperity preachers. Cutter gives plenty of details on life following The Purge, most of them horrifying, to illustrate how badly the nation has fallen and in which religious extremism is a part of daily life, infecting the minds and actions of the entire society. As Murtag is keenly aware, and is forced to discover first-hand, it’s a very thin line separating saints from sinners.
Jonathan Yen’s narration is pitch-perfect for the tone of this book. He has a gritty, almost-gravely, style that lends itself beautifully to the first-person noir elements that are pervasive in Cutter’s writing, giving the book a sort of L.A. Confidential by way of religious fundamentalism vibe. Murtag is a straight Joe Friday-type, and Yen voices the Just The Facts, Ma’am sensibility wonderfully, but also adopts some natural voice-work for ancillary characters, with his performance of The Quints, a murderous batch of quintuplets, suitably scary and effective. The production values are top-notch, too, with nary a hiccup in the nine-plus hours of listening time.
Part horror story, part word of warning, listeners of The Acolyte should at find themselves thankful that this story is only fiction.
[Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com]
